Re: Maharajah Ranjeet Singh
Yes to some extent I agree, however knowing the British and the other big powers at the time Ranjit Singh was always in a bit of a Rock and Hard place. His great Wisdom is often touted to Prophetic levels one example of his great powers was as follows.
In the year 1829 two British exploring officers visited the Durbar at Lahore and bought with them the latest Maps of the Regions from as far East as the SumnDabans in Bengal to the Westerly points of Ali Masjid in the Afghan/Indian Frontier and from the Nepal in the North to the Mysore in the South…
As Ranjit Singh scanned the Maps with his one good eye he asked the Officers what the large areas in Red represented, to which the Officers politely replied that the Red regions were all the possesions of the East India Company.
Ranjit Singh looked more closely and then commented with a mournfull tone to his fellows…
“Ik din Sab Lal Hojaye gah!” (One day the whole Map will be Red!)
Since that day Ranjit Singh made every effort to strengthen his own Army and improve the quality of the Khalsa troops and other irregular forces. Yet he crucially made several errors and chief among them was that he never selected an hier or even named anyone to the position…
One did not need to be a Prophet to see that things were moving fast and the end was in sight however despite that Ranjit Singh seems to have made no contingency plans and that I think was his big failing… though to be fair he did do a lot for his people and was a great administrator he too realised the game was up…
“Fransisee, Rusee, German ya Angraiz sub namak Haram ain” (French or Russian, German or English they were all traitors!) Where the Mahrajahs comments when he came to know of the double dealings and espionage played by his clique of European Officers which also included Italians and Portugese, Dutch and Spaniards even Colonel Gardner and Conora who were Americans.